Turning Digital Content into Lasting Memories...

[ChrisA]

Thanks for all the input.

I am going to start an album I think. It doesn't take away from digital, but there's something I love about tangible photos.

The other thing with digital, and this is maybe just my issue, is I tend to have lots of digital pictures so it's like "here we are at the park...park again...here's another at the park...and the park."

This is called "editing" and was something we did lots of in the film era too. I only printed maybe one of of them negatives. We'd make contact prints the circle the "selects" and print only a few from each roll of film.

You need to do the same with digital. Delete the junk.

Think of it this way: You can double the quality of your photo library if you delete the worst 50% of your files.

 

[Edge100]

This is called "editing" and was something we did lots of in the film era too. I only printed maybe one of of them negatives. We'd make contact prints the circle the "selects" and print only a few from each roll of film.

You need to do the same with digital. Delete the junk.

Think of it this way: You can double the quality of your photo library if you delete the worst 50% of your files.

Agree with all of this.

I shoot film exclusively (35mm, MF, and LF), and one huge benefit is that I don't ever end up with numerous shots of the same thing. I simply can't; I've got very few exposures to work with, so I'm selective at the capture stage.

Can this be done with digital? Sure. It's damn hard, though.

 

[ChrisA]

...
If you are a business then I 100% expect robust back up strategy including off location.

For home use, what is truly needed?

One of the most common cause of data loss is "theft of the equipment". House fires and floods are rare. Break-ins are not as rare. The other common causes are operator or software screw-ups that trash an entire disk.

Some place on the list is lightening. It strikes a power pole that is 1/4 mile away and by luck takes out every bit of computer gear that you have that is plugged in. Your primary disk and Time machine both.

I lost my Time Machine disk drive once to drive failure but had other backups.

Off site backup is not expensive. I pay less then $5 per month for unlimited offsite storage. This cost less then I was paying for all the disk drives that got rotated to the office. (I use Backblaze. And I also have a Time Machine disk and some other stuff backed up in a fire safe.)

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Agree with all of this.

I shoot film exclusively (35mm, MF, and LF), and one huge benefit is that I don't ever end up with numerous shots of the same thing. I simply can't; I've got very few exposures to work with, so I'm selective at the capture stage.

Can this be done with digital? Sure. It's damn hard, though.

I used to shoot film. I've got a LOT of it in files. I never worried about film use. It was CHEEP. I typically used one roll of film for each subject. If I was shooting a person's portrait, I'd shoot a roll or either 24 exposure 35mm film of one of 120 roll film.

I did sports shooting in black and white (tri-x) and a roll would last just minutes. I bought tri-x in 100 foot spools and re-loaded to black plastic cartridges. I cost me about $1.50 per 36 exposure roll. OK that was in the 1970's.

For digital? heck I use a test shot as a light meter many times. I take the shot just to see the RGB histogram. But I DO try and limit my digital shots because I don't want to have to hunt through to many frames to find selects.

 

[SpicyWings]

I got my first photo book printed 4 years ago and was hooked. I especially like the custom text - nicer than writing things behind photos (the ink corrodes, and text is inaccessible if you mount pics in albums or frames). For videos, just edit them in iMovie and burn to disk.

As for the tons of old printed photos you have (or parents/siblings have and you don't), the only way to preserve and make sure everyone can have a copy is to scan them: with a home scanner, scanning service, wand scanner...or your iPhone / iPad. And make sure your precious originals are stored in acid-free albums or boxes. And all digital media is backed up to cloud!!

 

[CaptainZero]

I've used the photo books from Aperture many times. I always use the XL Hardcover one. Makes a beautiful book. I've mainly done them as gifts for other people, but do have one for myself.

My last one was about 95 pages, and about $185, so they aren't exactly inexpensive, but they seem to be very high quality.

 

[CharlieBrandt09]

I love the ease and little/no expense of digital. I understand you dilemma. I have three kids - and it can seem overwhelming to pick the best shots out of the hundreds (or thousands) of shots taken. I back up to the cloud and locally.

I learned my lesson the VERY hard way. My oldest son's (now 11) photos were all digital, and I had very little hard copies. The HDD where I had them stored failed, and now I will never have the photos form his first 2 years of his life, other than what I have printed or in books.

I have heard very good things about the photo books form Adorama. I am currently working on one from photos taken in 2014. I figure my new plan, along with backups, will be to print out physical albums from each year.

 

[SpicyWings]

Digital photos can also be made into gift items and objects of everyday use, e.g. photo coasters, refrigerator magnets, cushion covers, photo candles, coffee mugs etc. Check out your local photo store or online shops like Shutterfly: lots of stuff. This Facebook page (of a photo scanner app) also offers many DIY photo craft ideas.

 

[v3rlon]

I will second the selective thing. I learned on film. It was always a finite resource. Even if I had another roll on me, what was going to happen while I was rewinding? Was I spending my resource too rapidly.

Then there was digital. I got that D70 and never looked back. I taught my wife (perhaps poorly), "Look, don't be afraid to push the button. If it's bad, we delete it later." Apparently, she has a one sentence attention span with regard to such instructions. She NEVER wants to delete anything, which I find very frustrating.

Now the collection heads into the realm of "we are never going to look at all of these," and I am left sorting out the mess.

Every week, I am finally going to get around to pruning that collection down to something manageable. Maybe next week...

Also, there is an album for the Apple TV slideshow every time we pause a movie or something.

Once THAT is done, I am going to make a book or three or thirty. That is my plan. Then the kids can have the files and the books to pass down to future generations.

 

[rotlex]

The way I have handled this for the past decade seems to really work for our family. I have upwards of 80K photos since the birth of my daughter 13 years ago.

I've used Aperture since it's inception to manage this "digital library", and some form of streaming device, ATV for quite some time now, to display those memories on my HDTV. I also do this with the hours of home video I have.

Even with all that though, I STILL take the best of the best and print them. I use either standard photo albums, or make the books if it is something really special. (Trips to Disney, milestone birthdays etc.).

I've been doing this for years, and my method is rather simple. No matter what camera I'm using, after the outing\event I import all the photos into Aperture. I delete what is true junk, keyword, tag etc., and then star or flag anything worthy of printing. Only those get post processing, then get exported so I can print etc. I'd say if I come home from a trip taking 3K photos, maybe 300 of those get printed.

Didn't mean to ramble on so much, but I do feel that even with all this digital media, there is absolutely a place for the printed album. Regardless of how good things look on the HDTV, it's still great to sit around the fireplace on the holidays and browse through those physical pics!